Three days he'd spent on the road-or was it four now? Perhaps five, even. He'd stopped really keeping count. Although that wasn't entirely accurate, it was more correct to say that he had been too deep in thought to keep count. For the first time in what felt like his whole life, Jaskier Alfred Pankratz was at a loss for words. He'd spare a few for passersby if they were to interact with him, and indulged those willing to slip him a coin for a song, but his clients were left even less satisfied than usual, as his voice lacked his usual enthusiasm.

His feet ached, as he'd no horse, his clothes felt dusty, as he'd not enough money for a room in an inn, and he scarcely trusted leaving the main roads in search of a river or stream to bathe in. This was far from the first time he'd felt uncomfortable, but he couldn't remember a time when he'd felt uncomfortable in his own skin. It felt like every person he passed could be a potential enemy, a threat just waiting to reveal itself-and he had no one to help him. Friends yes, he had a few, but none so close as Geralt of Rivia.

Even to think his name drew a pang of regret to his heart. It was not in his nature to shed tears over the loss of a friendship, but was it not more impactful to have one's thoughts entirely consumed by such a loss days after? He hardly slept, and even if he'd had a feast available to him, he likely wouldn't partake. All he really could do was keep moving, despite the holes worn in his thin shoes and the blisters forming on his delicate feet.

Without a torch to guide his way, Jaskier was forced to take shelter among the trees. He had a thin wool blanket and change of clothes from his travels with the Witcher and his lute-both gifts from the man who'd never once called him friend.

That thought stopped the bard in his tracks. Had Geralt ever called him a friend? Not to his recollection...many unkind names, even a eunuch once. They were never going to be the kind of friends to laugh over a pint and swap manly stories around the fire, but...it would have been nice to at least hear it. To think that Geralt saw him as more than a chore-something that needed tending to. Had Jaskier not tried hard enough? He'd done the best he could to repair the Witcher's reputation, regaled countless people with stories of his bravery and cunning and tales of the adventures in which they had partaken. What had he done wrong?

He trudged through the woods at the very edge of the road, looking for a good place to rest where he wouldn't be robbed for what little he had. But he paused again at the sight of light dancing in the leaves and grass on the ground not too far away. He followed the light to its source-a small fire, attended by a lone man. He looked old and weary, dressed in simple peasant clothes, and without so much as a hat to warm his balding head. There was a rabbit roasting over the fire.

"Don' stand there all night now," said the old man in an old voice. "Come sit 'ere wit' me by the fire. S'gonna be a cold one."

Jaskier had hoped to go unnoticed so he could slip away and find a more private place to sleep, but he supposed this old man posed little threat. It might be a nice change of pace to have some company…

"My apologies," he said as he stepped between the trees that separated them to stand on the opposite side of the fire. "I didn't mean to disturb you."

"Didn' say you's disturbed me, did I?" asked the man as he set a few more twigs into the fire.

"No," Jaskier answered, averting his gaze. "I suppose you didn't."

"S'pose all you's like," said the old man. "I know what I said. Sit. Have some rabbit."

Jaskier removed his pack and his lute and set them aside as he sat down, crossing his sore legs in front of him. "You are very generous, sir, to offer your rabbit to me, but I'm afraid I'm not hungry."

"Not gen'rous," the old man said gruffly. "I'll be dead soon, and I don't want a bard's starvin' soul on my conscious when I go to meet my god."

Jaskier stared for a moment at the old man, surprised by the roundabout wisdom his words held. "I um...all the same, please, eat. I'm young and fit enough so live yet another night."

Silence stretched between them as the old man tended his fire for a few moments longer. He prodded the meat with a small, dull butter knife he produced from a skinny pouch on his belt and he cut away a haunch, which he then held out to Jaskier.

"Sir I-"

"I heard you's the first time," the man said, pale eyes staring at the fire instead of at his guest. "An' I don't r'member askin' if you's was hungry. Eat. Or I'm a bad host."

Silence again, with only the crackle of the fire between them and the smell of rabbit wafting toward the bard. He took the rabbit leg with a soft, resigned sigh and held it over his lap. He glanced up to see the old man cutting away the other leg to take a bite. At least he was eating too…

The rabbit wasn't terrible. A little tough and without salt or citrus as he liked, but they weren't exactly attending a Centran feast, now were they? They ate together in silence, the old man gave him one of the front legs and then picked the rest of the meat from the carcass for himself with his teeth.

"What's a bard doin' so far from civ'lized folk?" the old man asked once their meal was through.

"What most folks my age are probably doing," Jaskier said quietly, tossing the rabbit bones into the fire. He watched them slowly blacken and crack in the heat, marrow seeping out and sizzling before it too turned black. "Trying to find what I'm meant to be doing."

The old man let out a grunt, a wide grin on his face.

"Something funny?" Jaskier asked, not unkindly.

"You youngins. Worried 'bout what you's 'posed t'be doin, forgettin' to look what's right in front of you's noses." The old man shook his head and turned his face away, letting out a cough that rattled deep in his chest-maybe he wasn't so wrong about dying soon. "You's get as old as I am, all you's can do is put one foot front o' the other. Do the next right thing."

Jaskier looked down at his hands and then at one of the frayed holes in the side of his right shoe. He'd been doing that, hadn't he?

"What do you play?"

Jaskier glanced at his lute and then back to the man questioningly. "A lute," he said. "Like most bards."

"Most bards are shite," the man said as he backed away from the fire to lean against the tree behind him. He let out another cough that left him breathless, then cleared his throat and rested his head against the trunk. "Are you's shite, boy?"

The old man's words were harsh, but true, and Jaskier was reminded of the time by the lake, when Geralt had finally critiqued his singing. Then he'd been offended, now he felt bittersweet amusement. Of all the things the Witcher could have said to him, that was what stung the least.

"I used to think I was good," he said honestly. "Now not so much. I don't play very much anymore."

"A bard tha' doesn't play," the old man rasped, "is a man don't know how to put his next foot forward. Play for me."

Jaskier chewed his lip for a moment and reached out to pick up his lute, trying to think of what he should play, if anything at all. "Most bards would ask for coin in exchange for a song," he pointed out as he began to pluck strings, tuning the instrument as he went.

"Suck the marrow from my bones when I'm gone," the old man croaked. "You's welcome to it."

Silence returned to them for a moment, Jaskier's fingers resting lightly on the strings, hand poised to begin plucking again, but no songs came to mind. So he asked, "Any requests?"

"Don't know no names," the old man murmured, his voice quieter now, breathier. "Play what you's play for the people that give you's coin."

Jaskier hesitated, because the song he'd played most often of late was the one he'd written for and to Geralt...why not?

He closed his eyes and drew a breath in slowly before he played the opening chord. "When a humble bard, graced a ridealong, with Geralt of Rivia, along came this...song…" He sang quietly and without the bravado he used in the pubs and taverns, gently, and until the song ended. Only then did he raise his eyes from the embers of the fire, looking across to the old man. His eyes were closed, his breast still, and though it pained Jaskier to realize that he didn't have a shovel, he felt grateful to have shared the stranger's last moments.